In Va., Landfill Violations Often Are Not Reported

Lax Enforcement Keeps Public In The Dark About Possible Problems

June 20, 1999|By MARK DI VINCENZO Daily Press

The Isle of Wight County Landfill might be leaking into the groundwater near it, but more than likely no one will ever know.

The county, which operated the landfill for about 15 years, never submitted a report on what could be found in the nearby groundwater. That is a violation of state regulations, but the state Department of Environmental Quality, which enforces environmental regulations, never made the county pay a penalty.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Friday, June 25, 1999.An article about old landfills in Sunday's front section incorrectly said 12 landfills on the Peninsula, Middle Peninsula and in Isle of Wight and Surry counties had not submitted groundwater monitoring reports required by the state. Five landfills failed to meet the deadline to submit the report. A list accompanying the story also incorrectly said the following landfills had not met the deadline: Fort Eustis Landfill, James City County Landfill, York County Landfill No. 2, Williams Paving Co./Armistead Landfill, King Land Corp. Landfill, Chesapeake Corp. Landfill and Newport News/Menchville Landfill. Menchville, King Land and Chesapeake are not required to submit reports. The incorrect information came from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. (The text of this document has been changed to reflect the correction.)

Many landfill owners, especially those who own old landfills that have long-since closed, regularly violate state regulations by blowing deadlines to turn in annual reports that show whether their landfills are leaking into the ground and polluting the environment. The state rarely makes them pay penalties.

Since at least 1996, the state environmental department, known as DEQ, has not fined or penalized a landfill for failing to submit these reports. (It has fined or penalized only seven of the state's 523 landfills with permits for other infractions. One had its fine dismissed before it paid anything.)

"We have to consider we only have one enforcement person," said Harold Winer, enforcement manager for DEQ's Tidewater region, which covers most of southeast Virginia, an area that includes 89 landfills. "If we sent cases to enforcement every time the regulations were violated, we would have hundreds of cases that would never get worked on."

So before the enforcement division gets a case, DEQ staffers must consider a number of factors, including the risk to human health and the environment and the fact that there are so few enforcement officers.

After a landfill is referred to enforcement, DEQ doesn't impose a penalty. Rather, landfills that don't follow the rules pay only penalties they agree to pay after negotiating with department officials. On rare occasions, DEQ will refer a landfill to the attorney general's office.

Many landfill operators privately describe DEQ as lenient, and they say they have no incentive to take DEQ's deadlines seriously.

As of this month, 5 landfills on the Peninsula, Middle Peninsula and in Isle of Wight and Surry counties had not submitted the groundwater monitoring reports they were required to turn in this year.

This concerns environmentalists.

"Obviously, the fact that a lot of landfill operators are not submitting groundwater reports when they should is very disturbing," said Glen Besa, director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. "We need to know if our landfills are leaking, and we need to do something about it if they are."

Although trash has been big news in Virginia this year, older landfills have gotten much less attention than have modern landfills, with their state-of-the-art liners and sophisticated systems of collecting escaping gases and liquids.

Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore has used his bully pulpit to scold landfill operators who accept medical waste and the trash haulers who bring it there. And the General Assembly this year passed laws to cap the amount of trash that can be dumped in Virginia landfills and to create a fund to help close old landfills. However, it didn't allocate any money for the fund.

"Our economy is booming, but there is still no money on the table to deal with the old landfills right now," lamented Jim Sharp, executive director of Campaign Virginia, a group that monitors solid waste issues in the state. That means more older landfills will remain under the state's watch longer, and environmentalists say landfill operators will continue to take advantage of DEQ's system of enforcing the rules.

The state's handling of the Massie Debris Landfill in James City County shows how landfill operators can take advantage of the system.

The landfill, which is now closed, operated without a permit from when it opened in 1984 to 1992.

"They continued to operate for years and years and years without a permit - eight years," said Milt Johnston, waste compliance manager for the Tidewater region of DEQ.

That is a violation of state regulations, but the landfill, operated by Jack L. Massie Contractor Inc., was never penalized.

On July 1, 1991, the state ordered it to implement a plan to check groundwater and to install wells to sample the groundwater and determine whether the landfill was leaking.

More than 2 1/2 years later, the work wasn't done, and the landfill was cited for "chronic non- compliance."

On Feb. 22, 1994, Andrew Puzzio, a solid waste enforcement specialist, wrote a memo to his supervisor.

"We have already allowed the landfill to operate without groundwater monitoring for over 21/2 years, thus giving our tacit approval of the facility's (chronic non-compliance) status by failing to take swift action," Puzzio wrote.